


So I Could Look Inside Her Eyes and Get the Colors Just Right

by storybrooke_clique



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Self-Harm, and theyre so PRETTY????, i am a soppy mess, i miss these women so much, luv that girl, title is definitely from f...ialt by halsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27483127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storybrooke_clique/pseuds/storybrooke_clique
Summary: Alex comes home to Maggie throwing her all into her heavy bag, and she knows something is wrong. This is very much a hurt/comfort fic and it includes self-harm so please be careful with that
Relationships: Alex Danvers/Maggie Sawyer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 60





	1. She's So Cold But The World Is Colder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So of course the chapter title is from Wipe Your Tears by Halsey, and if you haven't listened to it its SO GOOD. But this chapter summary is basically the whole work summary because I didn't intend for this to be more than one chapter whoops. But there are mentions of self harm in here and thats basically what this whole chapter's about so please be careful with that lovelied. love you!

Alex comes home to the sound of chains rattling and blasting music.  
“Maggie,” Alex gently says. She knows Maggie won’t be able to hear her over the bass boosted music she has blasting, but it's all she can say. She hates seeing her girlfriend like this, in pain, in agony. She doesn’t want to scream over the music in fear of startling her girlfriend. So she does the only thing she can do.  
Alex strides over to where Maggie is punching and screaming her heart out and simply stands in front of her, but behind her heavy bag.  
Maggie throws a few more punches until finally she notices Alex.  
She glares at her girlfriend, spits, “I’m busy Alex.” and continues throwing punches. Decisive, direct punches with perfect form.  
Alex sighs. She knows Maggie is trying to combat what she's feeling inside by giving everything she has to the bag. And she’s proud that Maggie isn’t doing alternative methods. But she recognizes that her girlfriend is still causing pain to herself. Alex crosses the apartment once more to turn Maggie’s music off. With two succinct beeps, the bass cuts out of the air, and the apartment is filled with silence.  
“Danvers!” Maggie splurts out as she turns around, hair matted to her face and sweat running down...well everywhere, “What the hell?”  
Alex chews her bottom lip and says, “I think you’ve had your workout for the day, Mags.”  
“Yeah well that’s my call to make, not yours,” Maggie says as she turns back to her bag and continues punching.  
“You’re not wearing any wraps,” Alex states.  
Maggie stops mid punch and looks up at the wall in front of her for two seconds, almost as if pondering what to say. Maggie goes back to punching instead.  
“Maggie, please,” Alex pleads. If Maggie heard her, she doesn’t show it as she keeps throwing her all into the bag.  
From across the apartment, Alex sees Maggie’s knuckles crack open and slowly become covered in red liquid. Blood. Maggie’s broken skin and she doesn’t seem to care.  
That’s when Alex had enough.  
The redhead quickly makes her way over to Maggie and covers her girlfriend’s fists with her own palms mid punch.  
“Let go, Danvers.” Maggie says in a low but firm voice as she struggles to rid herself of Alex’s grasp.  
“No,” Alex simply says.  
“Alex, I swear to God…”  
“Your muscles are shaking, Mags! I need you to stop.”  
“I-” Maggie starts as she tries to choke down a sob, “I can’t”  
“Why not?”

Maggie shrugs out of Alex’s hold and her eyes lower so she no longer meets Alex’s gaze. She mumbles something intelligible and starts to finger the outside of her AND1 boxer shorts.  
“What did you say, babe? I can’t hear you.”  
The shorter woman’s chin drops to her chest as she sniffles. If the room hadn’t been deadly silent minus the AC unit, Alex wouldn’t have heard the four words that spilled off of Maggie’s tongue.  
“I relapsed this morning.”  
Alex inhaled sharply. She knew Maggie had struggled with self-harm in the past but she had been clean ever since the two had met, so that’s the last thing she expected her girlfriend to say. Nevertheless, she knew she had to be there for Maggie. She couldn’t imagine how terrible Maggie was feeling on the inside, and she definitely did not want to add to that agony.  
“Mags,” Alex breathed, “can you look at me, please?”  
Maggie slowly raised her head to look at Alex, wiping her tears when their eyes met. Even though they had been together for almost a year now, Maggie still hated being vulnerable in front of Alex.  
“You know that I’m not disappointed in you and my love for you hasn’t changed, right?”  
Maggie, almost imperceptibly, nods.  
“Great, that’s great.” Alex continues, “Secondly, did you take the proper measures to bandage it up?”  
“Jesus, Alex, you sound like Kara.” Maggie huffed, “But yes, I did.”  
“Lemme see.”  
“Alex, I don’t want to show you.”  
“Maggie, please I just wanna make sure-”  
“You can’t, Alex.”  
“Why not?”  
“Because you’re gonna get sad and I don’t want to do that to you!”  
Alex tilts her head to the side and reaches out her arms to take her lover’s hands, tainted with blood, into her own. She inhales. She exhales.  
“Margarita Sawyer-”  
“Oh, my god.” Maggie says followed by an eye roll.  
“I would walk through hell and back if it meant spending 5 seconds more with you. I would take bullet after bullet after bullet for you if it meant you could be happy. A long time ago you said ride or die, and you meant that shit. And so did I. I will never, ever leave you because I think you’re too broken or I think you’re too much to handle because Maggie everytime I see you, I think ‘Wow, this girl is everything good in this world.’ Because you are. Even if you don’t feel like it all the time. So never, ever feel like there is nothing you can’t show me or anything you can’t tell me because growing with you and discovering more about you, good and bad, is a privilege every single day.”  
Alex releases one of her hands to wipe the tears spilling down Maggie’s face with her thumb. The taller woman’s lips touch Maggie’s forehead, and suddenly Maggie no longer feels ashamed or pathetic or defeated. All she feels is heady love.  
“Now,” Alex says as she places the back of Maggie’s hand on her lips and kisses it, “let me see your bandage.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so of course there's gonna be a part 2, i'm gonna update it in a bit. anywho, hope you enjoyed! please leave kudos and comments if you did, it helps me write faster! have a wonderful day, lovelies :)


	2. Beautiful Chaotic Messes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a graphic depiction of self-harm and self-harm scars in this chapter so if that is triggering to you, you might want to find your angst elsewhere. Again, this is very much hurt/comfort and there are tears shed (i did shed tears writing this sooo). But this is a continuation of last chapter, Alex takes care of Maggie's wounds and Maggie explains what drove her to do what she did. Again, self harm mentions so please please please please please be careful. I love you all so much.

“Now,” Alex says as she places the back of Maggie’s hand on her lips and kisses it, “let me see your bandage.”

Maggie nods, and puts her thumbs under the waistband of her shorts. She slowly pushes them down, until they fall and bunch up at her ankles, revealing a crisp white bandage with tape hanging off the sides attached to the top of Maggie’s left thigh. Alex gently holds Maggie’s face in her hands, and peppers her face with kisses. From her temples to her forehead to her nose to her lips. Alex tries to convey how much she loves this woman through each kiss, because words simply aren’t enough. Hands find hands again as the lovers lace their fingers together and touch foreheads.

“Thank you for trusting me with this,” Alex whispers. Almost as if she talks too loud it’ll shatter the moment.

“Of course,” Maggie breathes back.

The redhead falls to her knees and benevolently begins to finger the bandage, slowly peeling back the tape and lifting the cloth to reveal the wound.

Maggie did it with a razor. Of course she did. 4 thin red lines lay on butterscotch skin and Alex feels heat behind her eyes and tingling in her nose. But she holds back tears and simply continues taking care of her lover.

“Well, there’s no infection. Did you clean it?’

“Yes, Alex.”

“With what?”

“Rubbing alcohol.”

Alex nods. Tears swim in her eyes and threaten to spill over. She can’t imagine what horrid thoughts must be running through Maggie’s beautiful brain to make her want to wound herself. To cause imperfection. This is the love of her life and she refuses to let these demons get ahold of her. Was it something she did? Did she not say ‘I love you’ often enough? Did she mistake Maggie’s favorite donut for blueberry glaze when it was actually chocolate iced with sprinkles? Did she-

“Alex!”

Alex startles out of her trance that she didn’t even realize she was in. But she feels moisture on her cheeks and tastes salt on her lips and she knows she failed to hold back for Maggie. The older Danvers quickly wipes her cheeks and stands up to face her girlfriend.

“I’m sorry, Mags, I know you didn’t want to show me because you said I’d get sad and I did and I cried and I’m sure that doesn’t make you feel any better and look at me consoling myself when you’re the one who fucking took a razor to your-”

“Alex.” Maggie states once more. 

Alex quits her rambling and looks down at Maggie, who’s eyes look bigger than a full moon. Maggie is her moon and her stars and the entire Milky Way.

“This is tough for us both. You’re allowed to cry. I’m allowed to feel bad about you crying because we care about each other. This is the side of relationships no one ever wants but everyone has. I’ve got skeletons in my closet just like you’ve got some in yours. And one of them escaped today. But now I’ve got you to help me put it back where it belongs.”

“In the closet,” Alex says.

“In the closet,” Maggie confirms.

“Where we are not.”

Maggie chuckles, knowing she set up the joke, “Where we are not.”

Alex squats down and reapplies the bandage she peeled up, places Maggie’s shorts back on her hips, and together the lovers travel to the couch in the middle of the living room.

“So,” Alex begins, “What...what brought this up?”

Maggie lets out a long exhale and runs her fingers through her hair, thinking of how to begin. “I was driving back from lunch today at work when I crossed that bridge on York St. And I’m driving and I see a kid with a moppy mess of bedhead and a tattered jacked sitting by the bridge guardrails, feet drawn up in themselves, like they’re in the fetal position. So obviously I pulled over, got out of the car and asked the kid what they were doing. And the kid turns and,” Maggie pauses as she turns her head to lock her eyes with Alex’s, “it was Aiden.”

Alex gasps. Aiden was a kid both Alex and Maggie knew from volunteering down at the LGBT+ Youth Center. He ran away from home when he was 15 after his parents kept abusing him for being trans. Alex and Maggie had tried adopting him but his parents refused to give up parental rights, and he refused to stay with Alex and Maggie. So he’d been roaming the streets, like a lost cat, for the past 6 months. They hadn’t seen him at the Center recently. Maybe this was why.

“He was covered in bruises and he looked so thin and he just looked so scared, Alex.” Maggie’s voice breaks on the last syllable and tears start gushing down her face, “So, I-I bought him Big Belly, y’know he always loves a jumbo cream soda, and he said some kids from a shelter beat him to a pulp and called him every slur under the sun. And he just seemed so dead inside. His pink hair is so faded and his grin doesn’t reach his eyes and the bags under his eyes have gotten bigger and that kid has seen too much for being 16 years old, Al.”

Maggie collapses in Alex’s lap and shudders her way through the tears. All Alex can do is run her hands through Maggie’s hair and rub her back and keep whispering to her that it would be okay. Because it would be. She hoped. 

Alex’s pants slowly became wet with tears, like an ice cube melted where Maggie’s cheek lay. Sharp breaths and hiccups sailed through the air and Alex’s heart shatters into a million pieces. But she must keep them together.

For Maggie.

After the tears ceased, Maggie eventually calmed down and relaxed. Alex’s touch always did that to her. Even when Alex’s fingertips were cold, her embrace always reminded her of when her and her cousins used to sit in front of the fire and drink hot chocolate on cold winter days. Her embrace made her feel safe. And she was. So, she bravely continued.

“So I got to thinking, how many more kids at that center needed me and I wasn’t there? And then I thought about me at 16 living out of a backpack in the guest room of an aunt who didn’t really even want me there. And I thought, what would’ve happened if I had a me in my life? Someone who had been through something similar and said ‘I made it out kid, and you can too’. And then I had this overwhelming feeling of guilt for not being able to be there for all the kids and not being able to be the perfect daughter for my dad and not being able to be the perfect detective for the force and I started spiraling and before I knew it, I had a razor hovering above my thigh.”

Maggie’s head hangs in Alex’s lap, and with every word the brunette said, it seemed to get heavier. Like she was carrying the weight of the world.

Maybe she was.

Silence is suspended in the air, but it's not uncomfortable. It feels like a breeze on a sticky, humid day. Words unsaid and thoughts unfinished circulate the apartment until someone’s tongue is brave enough to release them into the air.

“Mags, you can’t be there for everyone,” Alex starts as she continues running her fingers through thick, brown hair, “I know you want to be because you are selfless and fearless and strong in the face of defeat. But you can’t give all you have to everyone. You’ve gotta keep some for yourself. Otherwise, you’ll wither away. And the world couldn’t bear that.” Alex pauses. “I couldn’t bear that. You’ve inspired so many kids at the shelter and so many recruits on the force and hell, even Vasquez tries to get her punches more like you. She’ll never tell you to your face though.”

This elicits a weak laugh out of Maggie. 

“You are already doing so much for so many people in this world, Maggie. Including me. So never feel like you aren’t doing enough and please, treat yourself kindly. If anyone in the world deserves it, it’s you.”

Maggie tosses around in Alex’s lap until she lays upright, and looks at Alex. And they smile.

“What would I do without you?” Maggie asks with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but not for lack of trying. Her eyes are still bloodstained and her cheeks are still wet and her upper thigh still stings if it rubs up against her shorts the wrong way. But she’s laying in a beautiful woman’s lap getting caressed by the most delicate fingers she knows, so she must be doing something right.

“You’d be A-OK, Sawyer. I’d be the mess.”

Maggie chuckles again, this time a bit brighter. “Well I guess we can be messes together.”

“Beautiful chaotic messes,” Alex agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a tough one to write. I kinda see myself as Maggie and hopefully eventually I'll find my Alex. Anywho hope you didn't cry and if you did I apologize. Take time to take care of yourself today, and if no one told you today, you're loved. <3


End file.
